Last Tryst

This city

witness of my

Anniversaries

of birth, death

and a million

in-betweens

sprinkled with

memories

of loss and love

of lessons

and joys

of aging

ripening, growing

wounds of evolution

and love bites

of knowing

hundreds of 

goodbyes

await me

in every

nook and cranny

My soul

whirls

in your circular heart

and sprinkles

itself generously

chanting

last birth

last tryst !

Read this poem in Hindi here : Aakhiri Mulaqat

Looking back - Life Altering A to Z Blogging Challenge

Blogging from A to Z Challenge [April 2015]

 

 

 

I had signed up for this challenge almost on a wild hunch, on a trial and error basis. I was not sure how this works because I am not a very passionate blogger per se, though I need to keep writing something or the other constantly.

 

In the first week of March my father passed away. When I came back from there the mail for the challenge was in my inbox and I knew I had found a theme worthy to keep my going for a month.

 

Here are my take aways from the challenge:

 

• Exploring feelings through alphabets, feelings that were somewhere deep down in the sub-conscious and wanted to be heard/spoken

• Finding that sentiments like GRIEF are as universal as love. My posts connected me to daughters from across the world, I wish there were some dads too who could read and know what they mean to their little girls.

• Learning is the only way to GROW and to HEAL. I am not a chat person but the TWITTER CHATS every Thursday brought in so much of learning and strengthened the camaraderie.( though I would suggest the hosts to have timings at least for one session that suits Asian Bloggers too).

• Blogging is not only about self-expression it is also about SHARING and thus CONNECTING, the two basic human needs.

• SURVIVOR is such a positive word whether it is this challenge, or its is life.

Loved this experience, it was almost LIFE-ALTERING. I am sure I will do this every year now on.

If blog Traffic statistics are to be trusted, these are my TOP 3 posts:

http://poojasharmarao.blogspot.in/2015/04/aide-memoire-in-memory-of-my-late-father.html

http://poojasharmarao.blogspot.in/2015/04/pay-it-forward-parenting-in-memory-of.html

http://poojasharmarao.blogspot.in/2015/04/open-letter-to-papa-in-memory-of-my.html

 



Zen in life & death ( in the memory of my late father)

Z

 

 

Blogging from A to Z Challenge [April 2015]

 

  

We used to talk a lot

about death

and yet

your physical absence

is so heavy to bear

 

the suddenness with

which you disappeared

person-body-ashes-water-nothing

 

was that the last birthday gift

teaching me

"m-e-t-a-m-o-r-p-h-o-s-i-s"

one more time

 

I was always

your strong girl

in your version of me

I could take on

the world

on my own

 

Maybe I could

because you stood

by me

as a shield

 

Now you are

my arrow and my bow

my aims and my means

 

you were warmth

and now you are light

 

I read this poem

to myself

every night

 

and I know

you are watching

me do it right.

 

 

******************************************

 

A VERSE I READ OFTEN FOR MY DAD

 

 

 

       "Love never disappears for death is a non-event.

I have merely retired to the room next door.

You and I are the same; what we were for each other, we still are.

Speak to me as you always have, do not use a different tone, do not be sad.

Continue to laugh at what made us laugh.

Smile and think of me.

Life means what it has always meant.

The link is not severed.

Why should I be out of your soul if I am out of your sight?

I will wait for you, I am not here, but just on the other side of this path.

You see, all is well.”

- St. Augustine

Yell Silently ( in the memory of my late father)

Y

 

 

Blogging from A to Z Challenge [April 2015]

 

 

Today 

I will just say

don't just listen to

the loud voices

the evident noises

listen to

souls

that mourn alone

and yell silently

 

 



Open Letter to Papa (in the memory of my late father)

O

 

Blogging from A to Z Challenge [April 2015]

 

 

 

 

Dear Papa

Almost 45 days ago you ceased to physically exist in this world. A couple of days after that while I was sorting your drawers I found the few letters I had written to you over the years and the cards and messages your grandchild had sent you neatly arranged in a folder labelled :special mail.

So today I am writing another one for that folder because I know this longest-distance relationship that we have now will not stop you from reading this. There is still so much to be said.

As you were aging and your ailments were taking their toll on your health and memories, we often talked about death and the hereafter. I do not know many parents who do that but I know it was another of your valuable life-lessons for me. We were both learning to come to terms with the inevitable.

You were preparing me to face the known miseries of the world without the comfort of having you there and I was letting you slip gradually into the unknown hereafter.

No tribute can rightly summarise what I want to say to you now. But if physical existence is some kind of a chance at learning life I say Papa you always were and will be my spine and my voice.

Despite my personal shortcomings I am proud that you have shaped me into a strong and independent mind and a compassionate and sensitive soul. Ever since I first held a crayon or read a word you have done everything to unlock my creativity and imagination and so it is alright I guess if by genetics I also happen to pick up some of your annoying habits and traits. J

Almost every day there are times when I shatter to a million pieces, when I feel like a rootless tree which will not endure the next storm, when I call out for you over and over again. But I know you are always watching over me and my little one. I have lost a parent but I have gained a guardian angel.

Keep sending me and her your love and life lessons. I promise I will keep growing in your memory.

PS: I remember you had once told me – no real learning is ever without pain.

Love

P

Jottings for the Journey(in the memory fo my late father)

J

 

Blogging from A to Z Challenge [April 2015]

 

 



 

 

You taught me how to walk

and get up

every time I fall

 

You taught me

strength

and how my gender had

nothing to do with it

at all

 

You allowed me

my mistakes

and face my fears

 

you taught me to

look for life lessons

and never be shy of

memories & tears

 

and somewhere along

some day

in your mysterious way

 

you had led me on

to this realisation

 

the journey is

always the destination !

Feet of Clay - (in the memory of my late father)

F

 

Blogging from A to Z Challenge [April 2015]

 

 

Had long ago read a poem

about Ozymandias

"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies..."*

 

As I grew year by year

The halos of my parents

did gradually disappear

 

I now saw them whole

as humans with their flaws

their feet of clay**

and all the faux pas

 

Now as a parent

I have to come to terms

with life's full cycle

when my little one

turns around

 

and sees me

as a regular woman

who has her flaws and

is less divine more human

 

 

I forgive you Papa

as you had once said

- "because none of us is perfect

what matters

where we are

we give it our best."

 

* Lines from the poem OZYMANDIAS by Shelley

**Feet of clay is a reference to the interpretation of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, by the prophet Daniel as recounted in the Book of Daniel.The analogy is now commonly used to refer to a weakness or character flaw, especially in people of prominence

 



A few more lessons from my daughter

She is all of 5 years and a bundle of energy that I often struggle to match with, but she is my personal powerhouse of wisdom and life lessons. When life is looking down from all fronts I look up to her my little Buddha to show me the way, and as if she understands this need and during those phases we have some amazing conversations about life and its accessories.

In the last few days she has come up with many insights, I keep writing these down just to archive them for her and for me.

 

So recently my daughter taught me :

• to relook at Rani Jhansi as also a victim of the system that idealised her only to sacrifice her young life at the altar of so called duty.
• to describe death in terms of how pencil shavings can never make a whole pencil again.
• age is no barrier by telling me that she is my father's sister now beside being his granddaughter because all his siblings have passed away
• to tell me that freedom is precious because those who are not free are never happy. She thought the birds in the sky are better than the ones in a cage because these can fly to find their own dinner :)

 

Life lessons from Veera Tripathi and Mahabir Bhaati on the HIGHWAY

This post is inspired by this wonderful post by my friend Indian Homemaker at her amazing blog and Imitiaz Ali's film HIGHWAY.

• Let go, your comfort zone is just that- comfortable, there is whole wide world outside of it.
• The most important part of you is your voice claim it NOW.
• Parents don't always know what is the best for you.
• Learn to question others and yourself.
• Goodness and /or crime has nothing to do with a social and/or financial status or level of education
• Boys and girls can be equally sensitive in childhood though their reactions to situations may differ.
• Romance is not always songs, dance and poetry sometimes it just IS.
• The greatest and only freedom is living life on your own terms.

Three of the million lessons from my daughter

This post was a guest post at the official PARLE-G BLOG here.


As I sit to write today about the lessons I have learnt from my child, a slideshow of flashbacks begins in my mind’s eye and I am taken back to the day almost four years ago when for the first time I was alone with her (let’s call her P) in the house.
I remember how I had experienced my strongest bouts of fight or flight that day. I wanted to take the best care of my 15-day-old baby but along with the next change of diaper my resilience would change into exhaustion and frustration and I wanted to just run away. I often wonder how I must have felt alone for the first time with my mom as a baby. Have the fears changed? Are the apprehensions still the same for every mom?

But that day onward with P, I imbibed my first huge lesson for life – keep learning.
The other day a friend’s Facebook status read, ‘I wish life came with an instruction manual.’ And I commented ‘I wish kids too’.
But seriously speaking, thank god that life or kids do not come with an instruction manual. That is how parenting becomes a learning experience like no other. Whether it is how to dress up a doll in 20 different ways, try a new recipe, my work or even my relationships, I believe real value is added only when we keep learning. We keep our heart and mind open. It was because of P I took to blogging and what an experience it has been. It has stretched my horizons to corners I could never even imagine.
Sometimes we will fail, the whole effort would be futile but the experience wouldn’t be useless. The elation after a successful new lesson is unmatched but what is even more precious is the lesson. So as a parent we must keep learning, whether it is singing jumbled up lyrics or dancing completely off the beat, or painting with our fingers. DO it and you will never regret this one.

As a parent most of us have an undercover job too- toy mechanics. Whether it is a broken favourite comb or hair band, or it’s a toy elephant’s trunk or a giraffe’s hind leg, our children believe we have the magic. I was always very keen on craft, used to do a lot of reuse and recycle ever since I was a kid, but with P in the picture now this whole mending and repairing has become almost like my second profession.
So the second lesson is MENDING.
Throwing away, giving up, shoving it under the carpet are the easier options, the tougher and according to me the better choice to make is to mender at least try to mend whatever we break or whatever breaks in the due course of life. How often we give up on long time friends due to one bad incident? How frequently do we use-and-discard things?
The art of cherishing things ,people, moments is being lost because we are constantly looking for the new and deciding to ditch whatever develops a glitch (wow that rhymed effortlessly…a  minor lesson?)
Like disposable plates and cups we have started looking for everything disposable. This has obvious emotional repercussions but see what it does to our homes and our planet. We keep acquiring new stuff and hoarding or throwing the old and with the physical baggage our emotional baggage grows heavy too. On the other hand mending is creative, therapeutic and it keeps your grey cells polished and shining bright.

“LET IT GO.” These three words spoken to a teenager in a remote monastery in Himachal did not mean much then. But my daughter has made them the mantra of my life. Because we must keep learning and trying to mend but several times despite our best efforts things do not work and that is when we must let it go and move on, this is the essence of having a regret-free life.
This is more effective for negative feelings like hatred and anger. We as humans are bound to go through all of these, but when we do not keep their residue within us we live a life more fully. Look at your kids how easily and effortlessly they forget and forgive and move on, how they do not categorise or label people based on one incident or action and thus keep the possibility of a fruitful mutual exchange of ideas and thoughts always open. How an old toy lost or beyond repair gets replaced by some new fascination.
I call my daughter my guru, my co-learner in so many skills and my co-worker on this grand project called LIFE.

The list of things I have learned from her can run into hundreds but then as she says “MUMMA JUST SMILE!!” sometimes a smile says it all.

Lessons from a Postman

Remember this:

The postman is a public servant He is very useful to society He delivers mail, money orders, invitations and parcels to us. He wears a khaki uniform. He carries a bag across his shoulder. He keeps all the letters and parcels inside it. 

He gets up very early in the morning and goes to the post-office. After collecting letters from there he delivers those letters to us. He goes from door to door and delivers the mail. He brings happy news as well as sad news

. Whether it rains or it is very hot, he does the work regularly and he is very punctual. Every day we wait for him. He brings news of our relatives and friends.

He is honest. His work is very hard. We should be thankful to him for working so hard for us.

Most of us have written something similar in middle school to get those much valued ten marks allotted to short essays in English. But I guess for the snail-mail generation postmen were heaven-sent and so we did see them with a lot of respect for the kind of work they did. In villages, he performed additional duty of reading out the postcards or writing replies on behalf of those who could not read or write.

A memory still afresh in my mind is of yesteryear’s superstar Rajesh Khanna singing “dakia dak laya ,dakiya dak laya,khushi ka payaam kahin,kahin dardnaak laya”.

I recently happened to meet the latter type- (the pain in the #@@ type). My parents who have been the patrons of India post for more than 50 years now sent me a festival shagun via a money order.(No matter how much I complain to them about this somewhere I love them for these traditional quirks).

So this gentleman had some secret designs on my money and so didn’t deliver it for a good ten days and then to take it one step further he signed the receipt and very conveniently showed delivered on his records. So basically this was a small forgery.

When we came to know about this, the matter was taken up and after a lot of struggle the money was recovered. To cut the long story short due to the various conversations about this on phone and otherwise my real loss was not the harassment I went through for such a small task but the fact that now my toddler would never see another postman in the same light as our generation did.

Another still bigger loss was the loss of trust that my parents suffered in a service they had relied on for almost five decades.

The lessons learnt:

No matter how small our job in a team, our good and bad deeds have implications on the whole team.

It takes ages to make the delicate we of trust in a relationship and just a tug to shatter it all.

Damn you Mr. Evil Postman! Wish more people respected the service they are a part of !

FIRST LESSONS

A broken toy

first lesson in transience...

nothing lasts,

objects are just that

objects.

A piece of chocolate

traded for a piece of burfi

first lesson in commerce

money,buying,selling

that money is important

but enough or little

is for us to decide.

A new book

first lesson

in a cherished friendship..

these remain constant

in all times and last

a lifetime.

Every day with my toddler

is a first lesson....

and every lesson

is simple yet profound.